Retired three-star Army General Mike Flynn — former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and briefly national security adviser under President Donald Trump — has reignited controversy within Republican circles with explosive allegations involving former Vice President Mike Pence and ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan.
In an interview with conservative commentator Benny Johnson, Flynn claimed that both Pence and Ryan conspired to push Trump out of the 2016 presidential race following the release of the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which surfaced weeks before the election.
Johnson asked Flynn whether the two GOP figures had been involved in such discussions. Flynn’s answer left no ambiguity.
“Oh yeah, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “Paul Ryan and Mike Pence wanted Trump out during the very famous… ‘pu**y tapes.’ Those guys were ready to step right in.”
Flynn alleged that senior Republican officials — including Ryan, then–Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, and Pence — discussed contingency plans in case Trump withdrew from the race. “They were hopeful,” Flynn said, adding that “there was a plan for, you know, hopefully Trump’s going to step down and go, ‘screw this, you guys can have it.’”
The retired general framed these events as part of a broader internal struggle between Trump’s populist “America First” movement and what he characterized as an entrenched “Uniparty” — establishment figures from both major political parties working to maintain control. “All the people out there that think, you know, all these guys are great because they’re Republicans? Sorry, they’re not,” Flynn asserted. “This is where the ‘Uniparty’ steps in… because they don’t want to accept that we are in the midst of a revolution and a Marxist takeover.”
Expanding his critique, Flynn tied this alleged resistance to a long-term political strategy dating back to the Obama administration. He questioned Barack Obama’s electoral victories and suggested that an extended Democratic leadership under Obama and Hillary Clinton would have fundamentally reshaped the nation. “Eight years of Barack, eight years of Hillary, we’d be done,” he said.
Turning to the present, Flynn argued that Trump now holds “broad authority” to act decisively in response to what he views as political and ideological threats. “Trump has a lot of leadership authority that he’s been given by the judgment of the American people,” he stated, emphasizing that the president’s powers extend beyond the attorney general’s reach. “The chief law enforcement officer in the country is not the Attorney General, it’s the President of the United States.”
Flynn also referenced Trump’s ability to invoke national security and emergency powers, suggesting that the former president’s discretion reflects the will of voters. “He can declare things based on national security and national emergency issues alone,” Flynn said. “He can decide which direction the country goes… and he does it because the judgment of the American people were imbued into his ability to do that.”
Flynn’s remarks have further inflamed divisions within the Republican Party, reopening debates over loyalty, intra-party maneuvering, and the lingering distrust between Trump’s populist base and establishment conservatives. Whether these claims yield corroborating evidence or remain political conjecture, they underscore the ongoing tensions shaping the GOP’s identity in the wake of Trump’s presidency — a party still navigating between internal dissent and a movement that refuses to fade.